


Time Will Tell

by ladyxdaydream



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but only slightly - Freeform, with a pinch of fluff at the end so you don’t suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23544454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyxdaydream/pseuds/ladyxdaydream
Summary: Iruka knows life as a shinobi is equivalent with loss, but that doesn’t make the reality any easier.It’s been softened by the ones he loves, until those same people come in danger themselves.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 7
Kudos: 128
Collections: Iruka's Birthday Shiritori 2020





	Time Will Tell

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Overthinking It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23492719) by [Gloomier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloomier/pseuds/Gloomier). 



> The first 400 words are in first person for reasons, but this is not a first person POV fic. 
> 
> Also, there is talk of Kakashi’s canon death, but he is very much alive, though it’s ambiguous in the beginning. 
> 
> Are you scared away yet? XD

_ Breathless. _

_ There’s no other word. I felt as if all the air had been ripped from my lungs. My chest exploded in pain. My ears rang. My vision blurred over. Though I was still able to discern Tsunade-sama destroying the stone pillar in front of me. We had just been discussing whether or not I could construct a barrier strong enough to trap Pein. if only for a moment, when Choji dropped in. _

_I knew it was true the second it left his mouth. If I were anyone else, maybe_ _my first reaction would have been denial, but I’m no acquaintance to Death. We’ve known each other intimately since I was ten years old. Death doesn’t discriminate, nor does it tally. I once thought that since I had already suffered so much loss, Death would take pity on me, and look kindly on the rest of my life. That I’d be safe until I met Death myself. Foolish, I know, for a shinobi, but I was young then. I soon learned—from the man I was mourning—that Death was ruthless, and sometimes life was just inexplicably cruel._

_No, my first reaction was to recover his_ _body. I knew where it was. The only reason I was standing in front of the Hokage in the first place, was because he stopped a metal rod from skewering my heart shortly before._

_My heart was skewered all the same._

_Tsunade-sama had known who he was to me. It was revealed in the way she said my name moments after his death was relayed. Whether she figured it out on her own, or learned from him, I can’t say for sure. I left before she could turn and face me. I didn’t want to see the look in her eyes. Her connection to him was different than mine, but no less real. She knew his Father, and witnessed parts of his life that I was never privy to. I sensed he was more than a solider to her. I could tell by her chosen word of affection because It was smilier to mine: Brat. Idiot. They were one in the same, and born out of love._

_It’s hard to remember what I did then, but I know that I never made it to his body. For that I am grateful, or my resulting nightmares in the following months would have been plagued by the image._

_I think I went to the hospital first, or what was left of the hospital. I realize now that I was searching for Sakura, the only one of our students, our crazy, eccentric children, whose location could be predicted. Naruto was_

“Hey.”

Iruka dropped his pen and stifled the urge to snap his notebook shut. Tears stung harshly at his eyes, as Kakashi smoothed a hand down the blanket draped across his back, right over his scar.

“What are you doing awake?” Kakashi asked, bending over to press his chin into Iruka’s shoulder.

Iruka shut his eyes, willing his heart not to break all over again because Kakashi was  here .  _Alive_ _._ No matter how many times he reminded himself, could  _see_ the reminder himself, it still didn’t feel quite real. His  Infinite Tsukuyomi looked similar to this, after all.

He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat, reaching behind him to scratch lovingly at Kakashi’s scalp.

“Working on the letter Dr. Haruno suggested I write.”

“She hates when you call her that,” Kakashi chuckled, circling around to pull Iruka up from his desk chair. He sat down in Iruka’s place, and tugged him into his lap.

“Says the man who refuses to stop calling me Sensei, despite how much I tell him not to.”

Kakashi smothered his laugh in Iruka’s sleep shirt, before absently pressing his lips between Iruka’s shoulder blades.

A familiar silence fell between them.

“Is it helping?” Kakashi asked quietly, timidly, as he rubbed a consoling hand along Iruka’s thigh.

Was it? Iruka couldn’t say.

When Konoha was rebuilt after the war, a new wing had been added to the hospital: a mental health clinic spearheaded by Sakura herself. Between her and Ino, they revolutionized the idea of therapy for shinobi. Not that the bar was very high, it was essentially non-existent beforehand. It was never given the proper funding, and most people were of the mind that shinobi was just another word for suffering, so why try to heal old wounds when new ones could split open every day? It was just “part of the job.”

Lucky for Sakura, this line of thought wasn’t supported by the new Hokage, whose lap Iruka was currently occupying. Without question, Kakashi had agreed to give them what they needed to get the clinic off the ground, the Elders be damned.

“I don’t know if it’s helping,” Iruka said truthfully.

After soft nudging from several people in his life, Iruka had agreed to go to the clinic, but only if Sakura agreed to be the one to see him. It was a selfish request, seeing as how she only oversaw the clinic once it had established it’s bearings. Her real vocation was as a medic, and she was soon going to pass Tsunade-sama in skill. It’s not that he didn’t trust any of the other therapeutic healers, he just… wanted it to be her.

“I suppose only time will tell,” Iruka sighed, turning his face to nuzzle into Kakashi’s bare neck. Kakashi’s arms tightened around him in response. Iruka breathed in the scent of him, the back of his eyes burning again. He restrained himself from clutching onto to Kakashi for dear life—a habit he was trying to break.

“Come back to bed,” Kakashi whispered against his hair.

It came out somewhat strangled. The inflection wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone else, but nothing about Kakashi escaped Iruka anymore. Like how Kakashi had been racked with guilt when Iruka finally confessed how much he’d been struggling. How he hated himself for being the cause of Iruka’s suffering, despite how much Iruka reiterated it wasn’t his fault.

No matter what Iruka had said to try and console his partner, it refused to sink in. That’s when he realized they wouldn’t be able to console each other. Not with this. There was too much prior trauma involved. Iruka recognized there was something still broken inside of himself that he never reconciled, from having lost his parents so young. And Kakashi had a long history of blaming himself for things that were never his fault.

They were both in therapy. Separately. For different reasons, yet some intersected.

The Elders had a fit about it. Claiming that having a Hokage in therapy wasn’t good for Konoha’s image. Iruka had given a big fuck you to  _that_ round table and scheduled Kakashi’s first appointment the next day. Iruka wasn’t asking their permission anyway, he was simply informing them on what was going to happen.

“‘ruka.”

“Hm?” he hummed, blinking up at him.

“You were spacing out, sweetheart.” Kakashi said, tucking some of Iruka’s hair behind his ear. “Come on,”—he patted Iruka’s thigh—“Let’s go to bed.”

Iruka sighed, reaching out to click off the lamp on his desk before standing up from Kakashi’s lap. He’d finish the letter later. Once Kakashi was awake, he wouldn’t fall back asleep unless Iruka came with him.

They padded back to the master bedroom hand in hand. Once they were curled up in bed again, Kakashi pulled Iruka into his chest.

“I’d do it again, you know,” Kakashi whispered into the dark.

Iruka tightened his hand in the fabric of Kakashi’s shirt beneath his palm. Though he never expressed it before, Iruka already knew, because that’s just the kind of person Kakashi was. It might have seemed like the wrong thing to say, but it made Iruka feel an insurmountable love.

“I know.”

Iruka couldn’t fault him, after all. He’d been quick to offer himself up to Death in place of someone else before. That seemed like a lifetime ago now. He’d do it again, too. 

“Tell me about the time Naruto tried to remove your mask,” Iruka said, a yawn escaping him. He’d heard it before, but Kakashi told it a little bit differently each time. He liked falling asleep to Kakashi’s voice. Some nights, Kakashi would even read to him.

Iruka felt a light chuckle rumble through Kakashi’s chest.

“Which time?”

**Author's Note:**

> Tag Gloomier, you’re it! :P

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tiny and Breakable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23586184) by [Gloomier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloomier/pseuds/Gloomier)




End file.
